We will grow batteries in the future

[Immortal]

Scoobes said:

Immortal said:

Even though I probably haven't seen more than four or five of them, I love TED talks. They're really enlightening.

This was a lot more interesting than I expected. I didn't realise that microbes could do stuff like that. I'd like it if someone could list its drawbacks, though. Surely, it can't be that easy - there must be some cost issues and such involved. If they weren't, then clearly all our cars would be powered by viruses and nothing else.

No, it's definately not that easy, lol. The genetic part takes a lot of time in terms of research. Things like ligation and the evolution stuff is hugely time consuming and requires a lot of experimentation and a lot of trial and error. It looks promising so far though and with some more investment there are probably ways to speed up research in the area.

The other issue is that this is all still early stage and small scale stuff. Virtually no-one has any experience with trying to scale-up this kind of biotech to even pilot (for pre-manufaturing) scales.

I suspected as much. I'd like to see how this technology plays out if investment increases. I don't know how on earth you're supposed to mass produce it, though.